Everything You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Seinfeld Episodes

...from two guys who wrote them.

Though Seinfeld is now more than 25 years old, it lives on as if not a day has gone by—mainly because of its all-too-useful catchphrases (and because, well, now you can stream it all on Hulu). We talked to two of the Seinfeld writers responsible for some of its most-cited episodes: former journalist Peter Mehlman (who has a comic midlife crisis novel, It Won't Always Be This Great) and Spike Feresten (who hosts a show for Esquire Network, Car Matchmaker). They gave us the backstory on how quotable magic was made, their thoughts on why the likes of the Soup Nazi never seem to die—and the two episodes they wrote that they wish got more love.

"The Implant," Season 4

Backstory: "I was talking to a friend at a health club, and I noticed a woman walking by. The girl I was talking to said, 'They're fake.' And at first I was thinking that would just be a great moment in an episode to have, and then leave alone with no further comment. But all of a sudden, I'm thinking, 'Hey, wait a minute, I can do a little bit more with that.'"

Why it caught on: "People liked these discussions that normally didn't take place in mixed company. It was like the 'master of your domain' episode ['The Contest']. It's funny — I thought if anything was going to be big from that episode it would be 'double dipping.' And that did catch on a little bit, too. There was a whole scientific study of the health effects of dipping a chip twice, inspired by the episode. But 'real' and 'spectacular' is what people always talk about."

"The Hamptons," Season 5

by Mehlman (with Carol Leifer)

Quotable moment: "Shrinkage" —George explaining the effect of cold water on the male anatomy

Backstory: "The only inspiration was that when I had a summer share in the Hamptons, this guy's girlfriend would lay out topless in the backyard, and I would think, 'He worked so hard for this, and I'm just getting this for free.' The 'shrinkage' part came from [co-creator] Larry David. He said, 'What if George goes into the pool, and it's cold?' I said, 'Oh, like shrinkage?' He said, 'Yes, and use that word.'"

Why it caught on: "Most catchphrases were byproducts of good stories. This was a small, relatable moment, a shared experience."

"The Soup Nazi," Season 7

Backstory: "It was almost documentary-style storytelling for me. In April 1995, I was working at Letterman, and we went to lunch at this place on 55th Street run by a guy just like that. Almost everything that happened in that soup store on the show happened in real life at some point. Even when Elaine says, 'You kinda look like Al Pacino.' That happened to a woman in front of me. Everybody in line turned away so they didn't see what was happening."

Funny fact: "When I wrote it, I thought it was terrible. I came very close to apologizing to Larry David. When it aired, I watched alone with my dog and was totally embarrassed. I went onto the one Seinfeld forum at the time, and there was one post that said, 'WORST EPISODE EVER.' I went and got drunk. The next morning I came into the office, and Jerry was bounding in like a Labrador Retriever saying, 'I can't believe how many calls I'm getting about this episode!'"

Why it caught on: "I think it's because everybody in the media was going to that soup stand. A lot of stations picked it up the day after it aired. We were all stunned it was getting so much attention. You never really know what's going to hit."

Weirdest aftereffect: Actor Larry Thomas, who played the Soup Nazi, still makes a living doing appearances as the character — and selling autographed ladles. But the real-life inspiration for the character, Soup Kitchen International owner Al Yeganeh, has continued to denounce the show. "He's very upset that we called him a Nazi in front of the world," Feresten says, "as most people would be."

"The Sponge," Season 7

by Mehlman

Quotable moment: "Spongeworthy" —Elaine's description of a man worth using some of her limited birth control supply

Backstory: "I was in my car and I heard a report on NPR that the Today sponge had gone out of business. And immediately, I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, what if Elaine is a sponge user? And she decides she has to buy out the entire West Side but she only gets a limited number. That would change her whole screening process.' And that's the kind of thing that never happened. That was like a gift from the heavens."

Why it caught on: "It named something there hadn't been a word for. There was no polite way of saying someone was worthy of being slept with. You'd try to put a term onto something purely to be funny, and you'd know it was working when you could get all the characters to repeat it throughout the episode. It was always such an accident when something caught on, though."

"The Muffin Tops," Season 8

Backstory: "I originally wrote an episode about Kramer intercepting cordless phone calls on a police scanner. This was something happening in New York at the time. I would make a margarita, open up a chaise longue, and listen to people's conversations in my building. But the week of production on that show, just coincidentally, Frasier did that story. We were racking our brains for a new story, and then I remembered there was this girl I was dating in New York at the time who really loved eating the tops of muffins. She was designing clothes for Liz Claiborne, but she said, 'Some day, I'm going to open up that kind of store.' We figured we'd have Elaine do that."

"The Yada Yada," Season 8

by Mehlman

Quotable moment: "Marcy comes over and she tells me that her ex-boyfriend was over late last night and 'yada yada yada I'm really tired today.' You don't think she'd yada yada sex?" —George on his new girlfriend

Backstory: "Yada yada was something I once heard an editor say. I thought, 'What an odd little tick.' Ten years later, I wrote this episode. The beauty of it was in realizing it could cover up incredible sins. You can gloss over everything with a 'yada yada.'"

...And the Episodes You Should Watch Again

His case: "I love Jerry's total disappointment when he sees this woman, Donna Chang, and she's not Chinese; she changed her name from Changstein. I had thought about making it a woman who was British but had lost her accent, which blows the whole thing. What's the point, you know? But the story was actually based on this editor I was meeting with once named Janet Chan. She turned out to be a tiny little Jewish woman from Scarsdale, which was a surprise."

His case: "It's my personal favorite of the ones I wrote. And the wig master storyline is from my life. A girl I was living with said, 'My friend, who's the wig master for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, is going to stay with us for a month.' And I was like, 'Everything you're saying is scaring the hell out of me. Why are you telling me instead of asking? What do you mean, a month? And what is a wig master?' Kramer's story happened to me, too. There was a parking lot on the West Side of New York where I kept my Jeep CJ-7. I would find used condoms in the backseat. When I asked the guy at the garage what was going on, he was like, 'Oh, don't worry about it, buddy. The prostitutes are just having sex in your car.' That's what I loved about New York."

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